The attempt to assassinate the prime minister exposed the chinks in his security armour. More than anything, it showed up the security establishment as being overstrained, poorly motivated, badly organised and lacking in unified command.

After deciding to reduce its overseas share-holding from 60 per cent to 40 per cent, Pfizer has drawn up ambitious plans to expand its pharmaceutical business, but intends to try and stay a high-tech company without diversifying from its main lines of business.

He comes from a family of great wealth (the Sheth family that runs Great Eastern Shipping), has married into a family of great wealth (the Irish beer-manufacturing Guinness family), and has been strongly and openly critical of the Rajiv Gandhi Government's economic policies.

They call it the 'Gujarat model'. And for a troubled textile industry, it spells hope amidst gloom. For with the majority of the country's 880 textile mills in various stages of sickness, and even the 160 nationalised mills in no great shape, the industry's future is bleak unless it can find a solution that works.

The two-wheeler industry has hit a rough patch. Waiting lists are shrinking and premia on vehicles are fast disappearing. With companies switching production lines and jacking up advertisement budgets, the industry seems in for an overhaul.

The CBI after questioning top drawer bureaucrats, came up with a headline-hitting report that indicts a pantheon of officials for blithely disregarding reports testifying to the quality of Mettur's silicon.

After a brief full, the smuggling of gold into India is again on the rise. In the first six months of 1986, Customs officials across the country seized almost twice as much gold as in the same period last year.

Daddy's girl does not want a doll any longer. At least, her parents feel so. An early teddy or perhaps a cuddly companion who will blink and say "Mama" may pass muster, but once you have toddled out of your diapers and perambulator it is over to today's world of educational toys.

Half-way through the financial year, it is no longer possible to conceal the fact that 1986-87 is going to be a year of poor economic growth. The promise held out by abundant early rains has been belied by the prolonged dry spell in the north.

With the singular exception of the queen of the games, P.T. Usha, who harvested four of the meagre five golds won by the Indian squad, and a handful of others, the rest of the Indian team performed not just below expectations but, in most cases, well below their own individual standards.

P.T. Usha was the unquestioned queen of the track at the Asian Games and single-handedly saved India from ignominy after the country had sent a record 400-strong contingent to the games. Drastic steps are needed if India is to do better at Beijing in 1990.

Indo-British ties have been strained for some time. The recent election of Mohinder Pal Singh Bedi as chairman of the UK Anglo-Asian Conservative Society with the support of pro-Khalistan elements has only added to the friction.

For Asians in Britain the Asian Song Contest is the equivalent of the Eurovision contest, and with the best singers from the United Kingdom expected to compete, the excitement is obviously mounting for the ninth contest, which is to be held at Birmingham this fortnight.

A bilateral extradition treaty between Britain and India is a finally emerging. After arduous rounds of negotiations in New Delhi and London, differences remain on core issues but officials on both sides are optimistic that a new treaty will be ready after the third round of talks in New Delhi by the year-end.

In the fifth opinion poll, India Today invited its readers to nominate the person who, in their opinion, most deserved to get the Padma Vibhushan for achievements in art and culture, and to rank seven others in order of preference.

There was a time when Parkash Singh Badal was considered among the most moderate of Akali politicians. Not any more. He has broken with Barnala, opposed the Punjab accord, attended meetings organised by outfits close to extremists and the funerals of people the police have killed as terrorists.

Movie star, stage actress, film maker and now editor, Aparna Sen still retains the Midas touch. Her latest venture, the Bengali women's magazine, Shananda, has arrived on the local media scene with as much of a bang as her films.

Three months ago, he became the "tourist" of the India XI, because he went all the way to England and came back without so much as lifting his willow. But Raman Lamba, 26, was destined to see a darn sight better than the green turf at Lord's.

Bandit queen Phoolan Devi, 24, continues to attract media attention. Phoolan made news when it was revealed that the Madhya Pradesh Government had issued an order that she would not be removed from the Gwalior Central Jail in "the public interest" because of a "likelihood of disturbance' of public order" if she was.

Over the last several months, before the declaration of President's rule, the Centre received steady complaints from a lobby of Kashmiri politicians about the "high-handedness" of Governor Jagmohan's rule.

Like nature, the Chambal valley abhors a vacuum. After a brief lull following the surrenders of the gangs of Malkhan Singh and Ramesh Sikarwar, the menace of dacoity is again witnessing a resurgence in the area.

Karnataka Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde can be depended upon to be dramatic and unpredictable. With elections to the state's local bodies round the corner, the image-conscious Hedge is all set to unveil two unique publicity ploys calculated to impress the voters and to gauge their attitudes to his government.

The Congress(I) has been repeatedly putting off its organisational elections for the last four years: and partymen wonder whether they will ever be held. Party Vice-President Arjun Singh; however, blames the delays on "genuine difficulties".

The image of the Andhra Pradesh police touched a new low last month when five persons died in police custody. The chain of gruesome tragedies, two of which were particularly horrifying, has sent shock-waves through the state as among the dead were those picked up for either petty offences or no offences at all.

The functioning of the All India Mahila Congress has been badly hit by demoralisation of workers, lack of adequate funds, and political infighting between its chairperson Begum Abida Ahmed, and its convenor, Minister of Youth Affairs, Sports and Women's Welfare Margaret Alva.

After Delhi's lawyers, it was the turn of Tamil Nadu's advocates to boycott the courts last fortnight. Incensed by what they claimed was a deliberate design by the state Government to leave judicial vacancies unfilled and subsequently pack them with nominees drawn from the state secretariat, all 20,000 lawyers of the state stayed away from the courts for 12 days.

When Energy Minister Vasant Sathe fired a mutlimegaton salvo against the performance of the public sector in the form of a series of newspaper articles, he sparked off what has now become a continuing controversy on basic economic policy within ministerial circles.

The operation of the government printing press at Mayapuri in Delhi is plagued with irksome delays and insufficiency. Among the victims of this mismanagement is the office of CAG, the watch-dog unit which monitors the functioning of various government departments and briefs Parliament on their performance.

If the god makes us feel morally upright, the demons too increase our feeling of well-being by becoming the containers for our evil. It is here that we must look for the roots of communalism and its tenacity in all communities - Hindu, Muslim or Sikh.

Last time, it was Dom Moraes' book on Bombay that fed a Shiv Sena bonfire because the author had referred to Chhatrapati Shivaji as a Maratha rather than as a national leader. Last fortnight, it was Virginia Fass' The Forts of India that was the object of communal wrath after a prominent Bharatiya Janata Party corporator, Ram Das Nayak, happened to read it.

The battle started over the typing of a report, and the combatants were an engineer and a stenographer. But with this minor dispute snowballing into gheraos, agitations, punitive transfers and finally a court case, one of the premier research establishments in the country has been reduced to unprecedented turmoil.

"He buries his hands in his pockets. 'Is it like that in your island as well?'" Those were the last words Shiva Naipaul wrote before his tragic death in 1985. The heart attack which killed him six months after his 40th birthday also thwarted the book on Australia he had just begun.

"Kudos for presenting us with a delightful pictorial fiesta of the 10th Asian Games, along with all the relevant details. While we are really sad that Indian sportsmen did not perform, as expected, at least India Today did."